ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1638323
This article is part of the Research TopicUnderstanding Stigma and Bias in Legal and Forensic Psychology: Challenges and SolutionsView all articles
The Impact of Self-Control on Aggressive Behavior: The Chained Mediating Role of Hostile Attribution Bias and Positive/Negative Implicit Affect
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zhoukou Normal University, Zhoukou, China
- 2Henan University, Kaifeng, China
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This study examined the direct impact of self-control on aggressive behavior and the mediating roles of hostile attribution bias and both positive and negative implicit affect. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 545 vocational students at a vocational school in Henan Province, utilizing the Self-Control Scale, Hostile Attribution Bias Questionnaire, Implicit Positive-Negative Affect Test, and Aggressiveness Behavior Scale as measurement tools. Data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 and PROCESS 4.1. The findings revealed that self-control negatively correlated with aggressive behavior, negative implicit affect, and hostile attribution bias, but showed a positive correlation with positive implicit affect. A significant chained mediating effect of hostile attribution bias and negative implicit affect was observed, while the mediating effect of positive implicit affect was not significant. These results confirm that self-control influences aggressive behavior through a complex psychological pathway, highlighting the critical roles of hostile attribution bias and negative implicit affect in this process. The findings provide a basis for interventions targeting aggressive behavior based on psychological variables.
Keywords: Self-Control, aggressive behavior, Hostile attribution bias, Implicit affect, Vocational students
Received: 30 May 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ma, Wang and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lanxi Liu, 17380366101@163.com
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